Comic Book Resources

What's this "Wonder Woman" doing fighting crime!? She's a GIRL!

What the hell's this "Bat-Man" character doing in my Crimson Avenger comics periodical!?

How dare they take the "adult" out of my Amazing Adult Fantasy! Ditko's wasting his talents on this Spider fellow!

I would have led the hue and cry over the cancellation of HUMAN FLY and SHOGUN WARRIORS, I'll tell you that much.

And, as a Canadian, you can bet 12-or-so-year-old GarBut would have bitched royally about the fact that he could not actually buy the ROM: Spaceknight action figure in his lame little country.

BARRY ALEN IS TEH GREATIST CHARACETR EVER AND KILLINGS HIMIN CRISIS #8 (SPOILERS!!!!) WAS A HUGE MISSTAKE! WE WILL FORM A GROUP TO PETITION, PESTER AND NEEDLE DC TO BRING HIMBACK! WE WILL CONGEAL INTO A SHRIEKING MASS OF PETULANCE AND SPEND A DECADE PISSING AND MOANING LIKE LITTLE GIRLS UNTIL DC "TRIUMPHANTLY" BRINGS HIM BACK IN THE MID-90s!

WE WILL BE KNOWN AS ALLEN'S NATIONWIDE UNHAPPY SUPPORTERS!

What the hell do you mean Professor X wasn't dead, he was living in his basement the whole time so he could fight evil aliens?!? Is this some sort of slam against comic book fans? We saw him die! OMG, that's it, I'm never reading this comic again! It's clearly run out of ideas!

Barry who? Bring back the REAL Flash! Jay Garrick forever!
Ray who? Bring back the REAL Atom! Al Pratt forever!
Hal who? His ring is powered by ALIENS? WTF? Where's the REAL Green lantern?

OMG! YOU KILLED GWEN STACY I'M NEVER READING THIS SERIES AGAIN WTH WERE THEY THINKING?

And so on. It's safe to assume that ANY of the major changes of the last 70 years would have resulted in outcry if the Internet existed. All-New, All-Different X-Men indeed...

It's a shame to that something like "All New, All Different X-Men" will NEVER EVER EVER happen again.

WFT? Beast is furry?

Storm? Nightcrawler? Wolverine? Sunfire? *Banshee*? Those aren't the X-Men! Give me back Iceman, Angel, Beast and Marvel Girl!

A few from the Legion of Super-Heroes:

They killed Ferro Lad/Invisible Kid/Karate Kid/Superboy! Those bastards!

SuperBOY? WTF? This totally contradicts everything we know about Superman's origins. He became a hero because his father told him to on hsi death bed!!!!! Don't the editors at National even read their own comics?

I hate to rain on the parade, but to be fair, even with the Internet I'm not sure some of these would happen. The Avengers were together for only 16 issues at the time, and they weren't really that popular when compared to the Fantastic Foure. They weren't quite the sacred cow in the early 1960s as some Bendis apologists make it out to be, looking for some equivalence for what he did in Disassembled.

I'm sure some people would still bitch about it (as seen in some letters at the time), because people bitch about anything. But I very much doubt it would be a big thing. Particularly seeing how Stan didn't kill Iron Man, Thor, Hank, or Jan when he brought the new crew.

Bringing Jean Grey back, yeah. Killing her? I dunno. Claremont and Byrne did it in a huge and lenghty storyline, so there was build-up. People weren't as angry with Captain America being dead, because Brubaker took his time to set it up. Jean "first" death was that kind of death too.

So yeah, there is a lot of whining in the Internet, a lot of fans opposed to change, but creators today indeed like to use shock tactics a lot more often than creators from the past.

But I'm sure Gwen Stacy's death would have cracked the Internet in half! That wasn't a slow-burner thing like Dark Phoenix. Conway killed her after, what, 3 issues writing Spider-Man after Stan Lee? The Internet would have demanded his head.

And another thing- Daily PLANET? Way to rape the childhood of all the George Taylor fans out there.

Spoilers: William Hogarth " A Rake's Progress' 8

Worst Ending Ever!

God Loves, Man Kills would have caused an explosion on the internet. I can see the Conservative Blogosphere picking up on it and going crazy about how the story "attacks religion" and and encourages deviancy, while completely missing the point.

Killing Joke has the obvious "Oh my God! They shot Batgirl!"

Terra would have caused more of an uproar among Teen Titan fans than them dealing with real issues.

"It’s a shame to that something like “All New, All Different X-Men” will NEVER EVER EVER happen again."

It did a few years back, in X-Force. And a few years latter (though less succesfully) in Thunderbolts.

All-Star Comics #3: Flash, Hawkman, Hourman, Spectre, Sandman, Dr. Fate, Green Lantern, AND the Atom, all in one book? "Justice Society of America' -- more like "Cashgrab Suck-ciety of A-MEH-ica!" I can't follow all these characters -- some of them have MONTHS of continuity to catch up on!

Amazing Spider-Man #100: That's it, I'm never reading Spider-Man again now that they gave him six arms. The iconic Spider-Man has TWO arms. Lee's lost it!

Amazing Spider-Man #102: They got rid of the extra arms already? Why should we care about anything that happens in this book if they're just going to undo it two issues later?

Thinking of those covers you gave us last week (or was it the week before) Brian,

"Dear Brave and the Bold,

I am writing to you via electronic correspondence to inform you that I am unimpressed by your current editorial direction.
What were you thinking??? Crime fighters in tights? REALLY??
The Brave and the Bold is about daring, strong, manly men, in chain mail, or just bare muscle and loincloths...
I don't want masked "heroes" in stockinged feet. They seem a bit un-manly to me... What ever happened to stories of men, wrestling to the death with their manhood on the line, thrusting muscular bodies against each other in the arena of galdiatorial combat?
I'm off for a steam-bath and a rub-down, do let me know when things will return to normal.
Oh, and by the way, less of the screaming damsels, and more of the plucky young sidekicks in shorts please!"

"Barry who? Bring back the REAL Flash! Jay Garrick forever!
Ray who? Bring back the REAL Atom! Al Pratt forever!
Hal who? His ring is powered by ALIENS? WTF? Where’s the REAL Green lantern?"

Bingo, other Michael. It really drives me batty every time DC introduces a new version of an old character (see Firestorm, Blue Beetle, and All-New Atom for the most recent examples) and the Internet Fire Brigade comes out of the woodwork to bitch about how DC doesn't care about the fans and is defaming the character's legacy. If Julie Schwartz had thought like that 50 years ago, we'd all be talking about Donald Duck and Archie right now.

Mutant Massacre would have been Godwinized from post #1.

I can't believe they CANCELLED Major Bummer!!!???!!!

Pre-Crisis Jason Todd: "So I'm supposed to buy that another young circus aerialist is orphaned and Batman takes him in? LAME! Like you could ever replace Dick Grayson as Robin."

Post-Crisis Jason Todd: "How could Jason Todd boost the tires from the Batmobile? Bring back the circus origin!"

"Amazing Spider-Man SUCKS now! When are they going to get rid of this terrible John Romita guy and bring back Steve Ditko?"

For even more comedy, fill in "X-Men," "Neal Adams," and "Werner Roth."

There were a couple of pretty constant fan complaints/"debates" in various letter columns throughout the years that likely would've been even more exaggerated had the internet been around. A couple that immediately come to mind are:

"I refuse to call your new character Captain Marvel, either officially change his name to Captain Mar-Vell or get rid of him already! You guys must be really desperate to think that people would ever forget the original Captain Marvel, the REAL Captain Marvel!"

"WTF's a Quasar? Just call him Marvel Boy already!"

"Why the hell do you have to explain why the Hulk was gray in his first appearance?? Make him green again and move on already!"

Vibe is the most obnoxious character I've ever read about. And his powers suck! Kill him off or get him out of the league!

or

I can't believe you killed Vibe! DC is run by white-supremacists! Long live Justice League Detroit!

"Ditko Sukcs!!! Get Jack Kirby to draw everything!"

In defense of the internet, we might have been able to kick up a bit of a stink about creators rights if it had been around in the good old bad old days.

When is The Tick #13 coming out?! It's been OVER TWO YEARS!!!

I´ll never buy another DC comics until they finish Camelot 3000! Who do they think they are, shipping comics late? IT´S SUPPOSED TO BE MONTHLY!!

SPEEDY/HARRY OSBOURNE IS DOING DRUGS!!!111ONE

OMG they broght Jean Grey back? Gee, death used to mean something in comics! Now what, are they bringing back Bucky too?

Now i´m going to drop all my Marvel Comics from my list but Thor, 'cause Simonson is doing a great job there!

"How dare they take the “adult” out of my Amazing Adult Fantasy! Ditko’s wasting his talents on this Spider fellow!"

Couldn´t agree more, i give that Spider-Man book 12 issues until it´s cancelled!

"What the hell? You blew up KRYPTON???"

"Lex Luthor? Even if I thought it was a good idea for Superman to fight somebody like that (which I don't), they already had a villain just like him, complete with the baldness. Does the name Ultra-Humanite ring any bell?"

"Come on everybody! We all need to sign this internet petition to stop Fredric Wertham from destroying comics."

"In defense of the internet, we might have been able to kick up a bit of a stink about creators rights if it had been around in the good old bad old days."

Given recent events, there'd also probably have been a large contingent accusing Siegel and Schuster of jealously trying to prevent the fans from getting their Superman movie.

"Let me get this straight: Green Arrow loses his fortune and suddenly becomes a left-wing goatee sporting 'man of hte pepole' ? This character revamp has NO basis in continuity!"

Might be skirting the edges of the cutoff-date, but let's try: "Who the hell is Cable and why is he suddenly leader of the New Mutants? Gah! Liefeld sucks!"

Ah, this is fun.

"I don't know who this Alan Moore is, or why DC would let him butcher a classic creation of Wein and Wrightson, but I do know that as of issue 21 I am no longer buying Saga of the Swamp Thing. WHO'S WITH ME?"

Heh...reminds me of What If: What Th-?!, where they had posts from the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. It's the issue with Jim Mahfood doing all of the art.

An interesting public fan frenzy that well predates the Internet was Jack Kirby's return to Captain America. Things were divided between "Kirby created him and brought him back, therefore it must be good!" and "Kirby may have done great stuff in the past but this sucks; at least put a decent writer on the book!" with the "It stinks!" crowd making the loudest noise.

I don't think there would be an outcry about 2 or 4. How much of an outcry over a "good death" (conclusion of a storyline, not done for shock value) is there these days? And changing up Cap? That's the start of a storyline and revival of a long gone character with a new status quo. On the Internet now that prompts some talking about the crappy appearances that have been retconned out but is generally accepted. You can't stop someone from whining about everything but it's not like the hostility that accompanied/would accompany Jean Grey getting revived.

Detective Comics #33: After six issues they're finally revealing The Batman's origin. And we found out that (spoiler warning!) Bruce Wayne saw his parents murdered in front of him when he was a kid. What kind of "grim and gritty" trash is this? I read comics for fun and escapism, not to think about kids orphaned by violent crime. This trend of making mystery men "mature" is a bad move -- at this rate they'll be selling less than 600,000 copies any day now!

Sandman, for me, it´s the guy with the gas mask. Any other book with that name that doesnt feature Wesley Dodds, i'm not interested.

We should all boycott DC until they bring the REAL Sandman back.

Seriously, WTF is up with those forcefields Sue's throwing around now? She's not useless anymore!

I don't know who that arrogant SOB running around JLI with the power ring is. He's certainly not the Guy Gardner I remember.

I hate to rain on the parade, but to be fair, even with the Internet I’m not sure some of these would happen. The Avengers were together for only 16 issues at the time, and they weren’t really that popular when compared to the Fantastic Foure. They weren’t quite the sacred cow in the early 1960s as some Bendis apologists make it out to be, looking for some equivalence for what he did in Disassembled.

I’m sure some people would still bitch about it (as seen in some letters at the time), because people bitch about anything. But I very much doubt it would be a big thing. Particularly seeing how Stan didn’t kill Iron Man, Thor, Hank, or Jan when he brought the new crew.

If there HADN'T been a ton irate letters at the time, I could see the argument, but you know very well there was a ton of angry letters regarding Avengers #16, and they did not tail off right away, either, as you would expect from something that wasn't a big deal.

There just wasn't the forum for the complaints after awhile...now if they had the internet....

Equivalence - it be there!!

The sad thing is Kirby did wreck 'Captain America and the Falcon' compared to what Englehart had been doing with the title. There was nothing wrong with his art, but his writing set Cap back at least a decade. HOWEVER, I thought Kirby's writing on 'The Eternals' was excellent. Sorry if I'm off-topic.

i may be mis-attributing, but i think Bendis once said if the internet was around when Miller did Daredevil the reaction would have been something like "He's a NINJA? Since when! MARVEL SUCKS."

I agree with Rene that a lot of these are things that would provoke plenty of complaints but not cause Internet-tearing mass freakouts like, say, the "tentacle" cover of Heroes for Hire or the whole Dr. Light/Sue Dibney fiasco. But if people are having fun, the more the merrier. My contributions:

1: Roy Harper becoming a drug addict. I think it would get a similar response to the Speedball/Penance issue, with people insisting they just did it because they were embarassed about having a character named "Speedy" and wanting to make everything fun and innocent anymore dark and gritty.

2: Jean Grey/Phoenix becoming the Black Queen after being mind controlled by Mastermind, and then Dark Phoenix. People would react the way they did to the corruption of Mary Marvel, only throw in killing an entire alien species and (even worse) having implied sex with Mastermind!

3: Phantom Rider raping Mockingbird in West Coast Avengers. People would insist that sort of thing has absolutely no place in comic books and that Mockingbird has been tainted for all time so no one will ever want to read or write about her again (the first point is debatable, the second clearly wrong). To make it even worse, since WCA wasn't exactly a flagship title, the vast number of people weighing in would have never read the issue.

Tony Stark is a drunk now? The man that overcame great odds to escape imprisonment (while nearly dead no less!!!) would never succumb to alcoholism! What a shame that Marvel has so little respect for their top heroes (a founding Avenger!). I'm dropping all Marvel titles and will be a DC reader from now on (my pull list was starting to be mainly DC anyways ).

What? A new Green Lantern? A new Hawkman? A new Atom? And worst of all--a new Flash?
What's wrong with the old guys? Bring back the old guys! (They aren't really that old--look at SUperman & Batman--they're still the same!) These new guys aren't even the same.

What's up with the lantern's ring & yellow? It's wood it can't affect, and Hawkman is an archaeologist?
This Atom has powers? What good is shrinking? At least this Flash runs fast & all that--but what a ridiculous costume!

I can't believe they just let Aunt Harriet waste away after Alfreds return!

“Why the hell do you have to explain why the Hulk was gray in his first appearance?? Make him green again and move on already!”

I actually think it would have gone the other way 'WTF? He used to be gray!'

So, wait, Professor X has a brother we've NEVER EVER HEARD about until no, and he just HAPPENS to show up and be the new villain? Pssht! Talk about your last-minute ass-pulls! I've been reading this title for half its existence, and I think you could have done a better job of setting up this 'Juggernaut' in advance.

ooh, better one!

I don't usually mind new writers on my favorite books, but this Claremont guy has got to go! He has no grasp of who these characters are, or any of their motivations. And his storytelling style? Whatever happened to the days when stories used to end? A subplot taking four issues to resolve? Ridiculous! This new "decompressed" storytelling of his is just wasting my money! Things used to HAPPEN in X-Men, now they just talk.

I'm not sure if people would have made a stir about the All-New, All-Different X-men. The title had been cancelled for years by that point, and I don't think enough people cared by then.

My contributions:

1) Grant Morrison is doing *what* to the Doom Patrol?

2) So Daredevil now has a long lost girlfriend, who also received ninja training AND works for the Kingpin now? WTF?

3) The Hobgoblin is really Ned Leeds? But he's dead now? WTF?

And in my opinion, something that would have trumped just about everything, including Brian's list...

4) This 'Crisis' is going to do WHAT to the DC Multiverse? They're going to reboot Superman, Wonder Woman, and God only knows who else? Seriously, WTF?

1) Grant Morrison is doing *what* to the Doom Patrol?

I can also see room for 'That's it? He and Animal Man just TALK? What a let down!'

I'm boycotting those airheads at DC until they bring back Jason Todd. We've had to put up with a lot -- the Dark Knight Returns was the most heinous thing DC's done with the character. I mean, why show Batman in the future? If we know he's going to be alive then, it devalues the current comics! And Robin as a girl? Total bunk! Jason Todd was a totally gnarly character and a DC icon! I'm sending my copy back to DC to protest!

Later dudes,
John Cage

Magneto is the now a reformed character and leader of the X-Men. Am I the only one who remembers him slapping around the Toad or how he once had a brain-washed Scarlet Witch dancing around in her underwear?

Lex Luthor is a dour Kingpin rip-off, who sexually harrasses his staff. Bring back the jolly one in purple and green.

Jason: I was just about mention Wha-- Huh? Marvel did a cool thing with the "What if the Internet Was Around in 1965/1975/1985?" From bashing the first new Avengers to people calling for the head of Frank Miller for killing Elektra.

"Terra would have caused more of an uproar among Teen Titan fans than them dealing with real issues."

I read in an interview that Marv Wolfman received death threats following Terra's demise. He was surprised by the reaction, because he thought he had set out clearly that she was completely irredeemable, but a lot of fans loved her anyway. According to him, It was a much bigger reaction than he received for killing Supergirl or Flash.

“Terra would have caused more of an uproar among Teen Titan fans than them dealing with real issues.”

What real issues?

"Sandman, for me, it´s the guy with the gas mask. Any other book with that name that doesnt feature Wesley Dodds, i’m not interested.

We should all boycott DC until they bring the REAL Sandman back."

Um... I DID that...

Bought Sandman #1, expecting a new Wesley Dodds series... While it was well-written and I liked Keith's artwork, I was a bit jaundiced that "my" Sandman wasn't in it... It wasn't until a friend asked if I'd read the latest issue (#35 I think...) that I got dragged into it.. (And discovered Wesley Dodds actually did have a couple of cameos!)

SO yeah, if the InterWeb had been around to this extent in tose days, I probably would have kept going after #1...

How dare they stop reprinting the old X-men comics. How will I ever find out what happens in Avengers 53 and X-men 46. And Len Wein isn't even going to stick around. Can't see this Claremont guy being on the title for long!

Seriously though, I can remember reading the letters pages in Batman after Year: One, and if Frank Miller thinks he's getting a hard time on the internet now for the "Goddamn Batman," he should count his blessings the net wasn't around in the '80's.

Course, in retrospect, Year: One was a fantastic story....

"I’m not sure if people would have made a stir about the All-New, All-Different X-men. The title had been cancelled for years by that point, and I don’t think enough people cared by then."

That's only half true. There were no new X-Men stories for five years, but the series carried on. Issues 67 - 93 were reprints. I bought 93, it was part two of a three part X-Men/Avengers/Magneto story, it ended with a great cliff hanger. Then there was a two or three month gap and issue 94 came out with an entirely new team and absolutely no reference to who won the fight between the X-Men and the Avengers.

This was all compounded by the fact that copies of Giant Sized X-Men never made it to England and I don't recall there being any advertisements for it in any other Marvel comic. So the team were entirely new to me.

It took me a long time to warm to the All New, All Different X-men and if there had been the internet at the time, I'd have screamed blue murder.

Finally read the conclusion to the X-Men/Avengers/Magneto story thirty years later in an Essentials. To be honest, it really wasn't worth the wait.

There's going to be another Robin?! Didn't DC learn from the Jason Todd disaster? Dick Grayson is the only Robin that will ever matter.

Who is this Skeezix baby, and why does Walt have to take care of him? Gasoline Alley is supposed to be about the CARS, not a BABY!

An Aardvark?? Seriously? I give it six issues max, before they run out of jokes...
An they can't even spell "Cerberus" correctly!

Star Wars as a comic??? Come on, it's basically Sinbad meets Flash Gordon, from the guy who did American Graffitti... Now, American Graffiti could work as an ongoing series, but this Space Cowboy thing?? Puh-leeze!

So why isn't Toro on the Fantastic Four again?

Favorite internet threat/complain:

"I´m going to stop buying all ___ titles" - yeah, right!

"Stop raping my childhood memories"

Brian offered five, so I'll offer five, just off the top of my head.

Note: I'm typing these out before reading any of the other responses to the original post, so I may have duplicated someone else's ideas. If so, it was sheer coincidence! I swear!

Hey! What's this newfangled nonsense about a Green Lantern's ring not working on anything yellow? What happened to the good old reliable vulnerability to wood? Do you realize how easy this is going to make things for this "Hal Jordan" fellow's enemies as soon as they realize all they have to do is wear yellow uniforms to cut his effectiveness by 99 percent? Alan Scott didn't have to worry about people wrapping themselves up in solid masses of wood, did he? They would have immobilized themselves!

Dick Grayson is going off to college and will hardly be around anymore? Bruce is shutting down Wayne Manor and moving into some stupid penthouse in the downtown district? What's up with that nonsense? Don't you people have any respect for the classic ingredients of true Batman and Robin stories?

"New Teen Titans #1," it says on the cover. Even says "Collector's Item." There's hubris for you. Haven't the "Teen Titans" already been cancelled twice? Doesn't anyone at DC ever learn from experience? Let's see, now . . . we've got a lineup of seven: Batman Junior, Wonder Woman Junior, Flash Junior, the former mascot of the Doom Patrol, and a spooky girl who always covers most of her face with that hood and is probably gonna turn out to be the Phantom Stranger's long-lost daughter. Then we've got the stereotypical scantily-clad gorgeous alien princess (couldn't be a baroness or a countess, oh no, gotta be a PRINCESS!), and a half-metal guy who is accurately described by Changeling as "the Star Wars reject." Wolfman and Perez are capable of doing much better things than this . . . I give it twelve months, tops, before this title disappears from the stands!

Huh. So Frank Miller just got Matt Murdock "disbarred" and drove him through a "nervous breakdown." Big deal. Everybody knows these things never last long. I'm giving ten-to-one odds that the next writer on "Daredevil" has Matt practicing law again, arguing brilliantly in courtrooms and so forth, within SIX MONTHS after Frank runs off again and leaves other people to clean up his mess! He'll renew his partnership with Foggy, too!

Whoa! I REALLY like this "Fabulous Frog-Man" character who just helped Spidey and the Torch take out Speed Demon! I betcha he'll get his own monthly series soon, with a laugh on every page! He's bound to be Marvel's Next Big Thing! It's just crazy enough to work!

I’m boycotting those airheads at DC until they bring back Jason Todd. We’ve had to put up with a lot — the Dark Knight Returns was the most heinous thing DC’s done with the character. I mean, why show Batman in the future? If we know he’s going to be alive then, it devalues the current comics! And Robin as a girl? Total bunk! Jason Todd was a totally gnarly character and a DC icon! I’m sending my copy back to DC to protest!

If there was protest about Jason Todd's death, it would have involved the phone poll to decide if he lives or dies (which likely would be an internet poll in our scenario, but in any case would be controversial.)

OMG, how can DC let Frank Miller ruin the Batman's mythos with this Year One crap? Now Catwoman is a tramp and Batman makes mistakes? And where are Batman's great villains, anyway? Everybody knows that Batman began his career by fighting vampires and evil madmen, so where does this "year one" fit in his continuitry?? Who cares about these no-name gangsters and that fat comissioner who wasn't even Gordon? DC has raped my childhood.

I just want it on the record that we are keeping track of all you guys bringing the hilarity and you should know that if any of you show up three weeks from now spluttering with rage about something Geoff Johns did to the Superman books, we WILL point at you and laugh.

Curses! The easiest way to trap people on the internet is to give them an outlet to show how clever they think they are!

Hilarity?

Are you mocking our pain???

Sign my internet petition to bring back Not Brand Echh! Forbush Man forever!

What the heck is a Kree? Where's Billy Batson?

Life is pain, Blackjak. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

Michael,
My favourite verison of that goes
"Life is sh1t, just ignore the smell and keep going..."

If you are suffering from pain in your life, can I interest you in Neo-Ibu-Prozac? You'll still suffer, you just won't care anymore!

Okay, everyone. I bought my copy of Truth magazine today. I saw some sort of cartoon drawn in it. I tought it was some kid that had vandalized my copy, but it turns out the magazine is now publishing drawings!! I couldn't believe it. These aren't the usual political cartoons we see, oh no. There is some sort of weird "Yellow Kid" character, and, get that - the things he say's aren't written in a paragraph under the drawing, but rather from a kind of "balloon" to represent his speech.

I for one am never buying Truth magazine again. And I am saddened that this is the type of thing that passes for humor nowadays. Who's joining me on the boycott?

[...] hace… 40 años, 50 o más. ¿Qué opiniones hubieran dejado caer los fans por aquel entonces? En Comics Should be Good, Brian Cronin plantea lo que se hubiera dicho por las internetes de haber existido la red en el [...]

Re: Thok -- I was going for a general sort of rant on what happened rather than rip on anything specifically. I mean, if I was going to be accurate I probably wouldn't have gone overboard with the 80s-speak (and believe me, I was 'this' close to adding "gag me with a spoon").

Have a good day.
John Cage

Galactus "Trilogy?" Remember when writers could write stories that were complete in one issue?

This Spider-Man is just one more entry in the disturbing trend to make superheroes dark and depressing. First there was the Thing, who's forced to live as a monster, but at least he's balanced out by the Human Torch. Then there was the Hulk, who was not only forced to look like a monster, but to act like one as well. Now Spider-Man, who has a terrible life (as we're repeatedly shown), gets a chance to improve it, and what happens? He manages to destroy one of the few remaining good things in his life! The real moral of that story seems to have been taken from "Superduperman" in MAD: "Once a chump, always a chump!" Then again, the creators show their contempt for super-heroes in the blurb on the first page, so I shouldn't be surprised. Remember when comics used to be fun?

What the heck is that yellow circle doing on batman's costume? and what's with this ra's al ghoul guy? i want batman on planets i can't pronounce the name of, not fighting villains i can't pronounce the name of. and bring back bat-mite!

and dc, what's the deal with only giving me one story per issue? i expect more than that for a quarter. and what a rip-off, "100 pages" (yeah, if you count the ADS) for 60 cents. and it's mostly (boring) reprints anyway.

another one that actually did piss me off back in the day was when they printed that tabloid sized book for the wedding of saturn girl and lightning lad. it was totally in continuity and those things (the tabloid sized books) were tough to find before comic shops were widespread.

Hammerheart said:
OMG, how can DC let Frank Miller ruin the Batman’s mythos with this Year One crap? Now Catwoman is a tramp and Batman makes mistakes? And where are Batman’s great villains, anyway? Everybody knows that Batman began his career by fighting vampires and evil madmen, so where does this “year one” fit in his continuitry?? Who cares about these no-name gangsters and that fat comissioner who wasn’t even Gordon? DC has raped my childhood.

If I'd seen that on the Internet around 1987, I would have said something like this:

"Huh? Are you under the impression that Batman making mistakes, and sometimes getting shot full of holes because of it (even by cops!), is a bold new idea? Why do you think that? Anyway, we didn't get to see every hour of every day of his first year on the job, so he was probably fighting those mad scientists and vampires and stuff on some of those nights when Gordon wasn't around to notice."

Pisthetairos -- while I've vaguely heard of the Yellow Kid, I didn't identify the name "Truth Magazine." You definitely went back further than I expected anyone to do. I suppose the only way to go back further would be to complain that editorial cartoons and caricatures of a few centuries ago are degrading the solemn tone a newspaper should have?

Doug Atkinson said:
Galactus “Trilogy?” Remember when writers could write stories that were complete in one issue?

If I'd been alive in those days, I might have said:

"No, I don't remember that -- not if you mean 'when writers could and ALWAYS DID' wrap it up in one issue. Back in the 1940s, Captain Marvel fought the Monster Society of Evil in a 25-chapter storyline, didn't he? Stan Lee is still looking downright terse compared to whoever-the-writer-was of that old epic out for so long!"

I think I meant that last bit to say: "compared to whoever-the-writer-was of that old epic which was dragged out for so long!"

Justice League Detroit? Bring back the satellite!!

When is Ronin 6 coming out??

A New Universe? Boycott these comics! If they start selling well, Marvel will cancel Spider-Man! I called it!!!!!

New Gods? I can't believe DC is publishing this blasphemy. There is only one true God, whihc is our lord and savior Jesus Christ and I'm boycotting DC until they stop publishing these satanic comics. No wonder sales are in teh toilette if this is the kind of thing the high and mighty DC editors think will sell.

Pisthetairos — while I’ve vaguely heard of the Yellow Kid, I didn’t identify the name “Truth Magazine.” You definitely went back further than I expected anyone to do. I suppose the only way to go back further would be to complain that editorial cartoons and caricatures of a few centuries ago are degrading the solemn tone a newspaper should have?

"Hey, who chiseled this sideways bird on my wall? Any idiot can see that the sequence is supposed to go "eyeball, squiggle, guy with his arms out, eyeball, crocodile, EYEBALL," not "eyeball, squiggle, guy with his arms out, eyeball, crocodile, BIRD!" Geeze! That's it, I'm not looking at this pyramid any more. They've lost me as a customer forever!!"

billo said:
Justice League Detroit? Bring back the satellite!!

But that's only what any sensible reader would say!

Although if the team had actually kept more of the "name" superheroes around, then the detail that the new HQ was in Detroit, instead of in geosynchronous orbit, would have been trivial. But instead we were asked to believe that a barefoot thief named Gypsy and a breakdancer named Vibe were, just by being residents in the same neighborhood as the new HQ, perfect material for the JLA. (Talk about lowering your recruiting standards!)

yo go re --

Your comment about giving up on a pyramid because of its mangled art was funny!

In case you're interested: Yesterday, even as I said I thought this line of argument could only go back as far as when newspapers first began publishing satirical cartoon sketches, the thought crossed my mind that we could talk about Neanderthals, tens of thousands of years ago, sneering at those uppity Cro-Magnons with their pretensions that painting a picture of a deer on the wall of a cave is an achievement worth bragging about. But I decided that other forms of "visual art" are not the same thing as "comics" and "cartoons" as we know them today . . . Egyptian hierogylphics didn't even occur to me, though.

I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself.

1. What's with this Chris Claremont broad turning the X-Men into a love-fest soap opera? Hey, babe, they're X-MEN, not X-WOMEN. Marvel should get that Jo Duffy guy who writes the Punisher to put the testosterone back into my favourite group of mutants.

2. How dare they call Richard Ryder KID Nova! He isn't Nova's kid brother, he's the real Nova.

3. Who is this Donna Troy person? Wonder Girl is Wonder Woman as a teen, not her teen sidekick. Don't those guys at DC read their own comics?

4. I know issue #2 of Infinity Gauntlet just came out, but here is how it is going to end (spoilerz): Thanos kills everyone except Captain America, and when he is defeated everyone comes back to life. Didn't we see this (except better) done already with Michael Korvak?

5. So, Spider-Man is a clone, and the real Spider-Man isn't married to Mary Jane? But, the Evolutionary War proved that the clones were faked. If Marvel wanted to destroy the marriage, they should have gone with something a bit more believable. Like magic.

Theno

1. "Captain and the Kids?" it's just a ripoff of the Katzenjammer Kids!

2a. "Teenage...Mutant...Ninja...TURTLES???" WTF?
2b. What's with all these Three-Adjetive-And-A-Noun books? Everyone knows TMNT is the best!

3. I can't believe Timely is jumping on the super-hero bandwagon. Everyone knows the future is paved with Westerns and Romance.

4. Neal Adams is starting his own comic book line. Imagine - like five or six books by Neal Adams every month. SWEET!

5. NEW Fun Comics? These aren't newspaper reprints, like you'd expect from a comic book, just a bunch of newspaper rejects. Jeez, didja see that "Dr Occult" from a couple of kids (KIDS!) from Cleavland - Seegul and Shooster? It's no wonder they can't do anything in a real publication.

6. BREAKING NEWS: National bought out All-American - at this rate, there'll be only two big comic companies left. MAKE MINE DELL!

7. Man, someone graffitied my cave wall. And that looks nothing like a bison, BTW.

8. I just got Flash 105. What happened to 1-104? I never saw them.